Hey everyone!

After our early morning arrival into Nha Trang we headed straight to the hotel and managed to get an hours kip. We then met up with Dave and went for an authentic Vietnamese breakfast which was a dish called Bonai (steaming hot plate with a minute steak topped with fried egg, onion and sauce with a baguette) - very tasty! Today we visited a nice quiet beach with Dave and his wife Fung, who provided food for us all day while we relaxed and sun bathed. In the evening we went on a little bar crawl for the Norweigian boys' final night. It was a good night with lots of drinking, dancing and once again a pool party.

Tuesday 22nd February we had a free day in Nha Trang. We forced ourselves out of bed early to take advantage of the free breakfast and then went for a wander round the town before checking out at midday. After meeting up with some of the group we went for some lunch and then spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool. In the evening we returned to the Booze Cruise, a bar we visited the previous night and had some dinner before catching an overnight train to Da Trang. It was then we realised how nice the first sleeper train actually was. We were now onboard cockroach express!

After many delays we arrived into Da Trang around 11:30 and got on a bus to Hoi An. Our hotel was amazing, and more than made up for our train ride. We headed to a waterside cafe for lunch which floods up to the second floor in rainy season (oct-dec). Hoi an is definitely a place to shop with over 600 tailors competing for business. We visited Yaly (a tailor shop Dave recommended) and ordered ourselves a suit each after hours of deliberation over style and fabric - there was so much to choose from! We then had a quick look round the market and improved our bartering skills. At 7pm we went for dinner at a resturant called Cargo which was attached to a patisserie so the deserts were delicious!

On Thursday 24th February we had a free day which entailed shopping and not much else. It was a really enjoyable day :-)!! As well as fittings for our suits, we purchased several tailored items, t-shirts, and gifts. Between our fittings we returned to Cargo and had a lovely chocolate croissant. Walking round the streets of Hoi An it felt more like a French village with quiet roads and beautiful buildings. In the evening we visited an alternative restaurant where each of us paid $4 and the whole table was served with four different dishes - spring rolls, pork satay, grilled pork and rice pancakes. After a few drinks at a bar we headed to the hotel for some much needed sleep and the challenge of packing our new purchases into our backpacks!

Friday the 25th February we sadly left Hoi An and made our way to Hue by bus. We stopped briefly on top of a mountain and took a few snaps of the breath taking scenery and then arrived in Hue around lunch time. We ate at a small cafe where you can write on the walls (seemingly a theme in Hue). Here we were each given a wooden bottle opener as a souvenir which they encourage you to take photos with in different locations and send back to the cafe to be put in an album. After this we briefly visited the Citadel and had an explore of the city. The following morning after breakfast we met the group to go on a motorbike tour. Unlike our last motorbike excursion which seemed more like a race, we left the manic city roads and mainly stuck to quiet dirt paths in the countryside. This was a lovely morning and we visited a local village, saw rice farming in action, took pictures on a hill top and visited a coliseum & pagoda. We also stopped at a local woman's house who's a famous conical hat maker despite having only one arm. It takes her 7 hours to make one hat which she only gets about 50p for. Following our ride we then made our way to catch our third sleeper train of the trip. Fortunately this one was more like the first train which we were very grateful for as we had 14 hours to spend on it.

This is as far as we've written in our journals, we're a few days behind ourselves. The photos are still being a bit of a nightmare to upload, hopefully once we've left Asia we'll have more chance of getting them up. Hope you are all well!

Lots of love and hugs!

xxxxxxx